Jobs scheme helps just three in 100 back to work

A scheme to get people back to work has been slammed as a failure

RORY REYNOLDS

A FLAGSHIP government project designed to help workers off benefits has been slated after new figures showed it has helped just three in every 100 back into employment.

Edinburgh MP Sheila Gilmore has warned that jobseekers are being badly let down by the UK Government’s under-fire Work Programme.

There were 11,020 people claiming Jobseekers’ Allowance in the city as of last month – with almost 3000 out of work for more than a year.

Of these, 2615 were aged 18-24 and 400 of them had not worked for more than 12 months, falling into the category of long-term youth unemployment. Another 380 young people had been out of work for at least six months.

Labour leader Ed Miliband accused David Cameron of presiding over a 96 per cent rise in long-term unemployment since the Work Programme was introduced 18 months ago, at a cost to taxpayers of £435 million so far.

UK-wide, around 785,000 people have taken part in the programme, but just 18,270 held down jobs for six months.

However, Mr Cameron, speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, insisted that around 200,000 had started new jobs and that the scheme needed time.

In Edinburgh East – which is represented by Labour MP Sheila Gilmore and includes Lochend, Craigmillar, Craigentinny, Duddingston and Portobello – just two in every 100 found a job after joining the scheme.

Edinburgh South saw a marginal improvement, with nearly four in every 100 landing work.

The Work Programme was introduced last year and involves 18 private, public sector and voluntary organisations taking over responsibility for training unemployed workers.

They then attempt to place those signed up to the programme in paid jobs and get them off benefits.

But all 18 firms, which are each paid hundreds of millions of pounds by the UK Government, have failed to hit the already low target of a 5.5 per cent success rate.

In February and March this year, unemployment in Edinburgh peaked at 12,110 – the highest level since July 1997, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This represents unemployment of around 3.2 per cent of the city population, which is lower than other UK cities.

Ms Gilmore said: “The figures reveal the Work Programme is comprehensively failing. The Work Programme is doing worse than if the Government had done nothing.

“Meanwhile, there are 2835 people in Edinburgh who have been out of work for more than a year. And there are 2.8 claimants chasing a single vacancy. This government is letting local people down.

“The time has come for decisive action. George Osborne must now take the big steps Labour propose to drive down unemployment and start with a big plan to get our young people into work.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.